The New Jersey Forest Fire Service (NJFFS), a division of the New Jersey Departmental of Environmental Protection (NJDEP),
has developed this Wildfire Fuel Hazard data based upon NJDEP's 2002 Land Use/Land Cover (LU/LC) datasets and NJDEP's 2002
10-meter Digital Elevation Grid datasets. The NJFFS took the NJDEP Modified Anderson Land Use/Land Cover Classification
System 2002 and assigned Wildfire Fuel Hazard Rankings to it. The ranking system is as follows: 0 = Water, 1 = Low,
2 = Moderate, 3 = High, 4 = Very High, 5 = Extreme, 6 = Urban, 7 = Agriculture, 8 = Barren Land. The NJFFS used NJDEP's 2002
10-meter Digital Elevation Grids and calculated areas of 30% or greater slope throughout New Jersey. For areas of Wildfire
Fuel Hazard 1 to 4 (i.e. Low to Very High) that were coincident with areas of 30% or greater slope, the Wildfire Fuel Hazard
Ranking was increased by 1 value (i.e. Low was increased to Moderate, Moderate to High, etc.). For areas of Wildfire Fuel
Hazard 0, and 5-8, the Wildfire Fuel Hazard Ranking remained the same. Once the LU/LC was coded according to Wildfire Fuel
Hazard, taking into account 30% or greater slopes, the data was divided up by County. The project began in March 2009 and
was completed in May 2009.